High Speed Rail in Canada

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by itom 987

You are making a black and white statement, and we both know this is not the case.

I am pointing out the absurdity of your argument. You are suggesting that is not acceptable to most people and that they will choose an asset they don't yet own (the $50k full automated sleeper car, that will be very expensive, above all other solutions. Maybe this is an Alberta thing. But I don't see the logic from where I sit in Ontario. I don't know a single person who would choose to sleep in their car for a 5 hr drive from Toronto to Montreal, over a 3-4 hr train ride during the day and their own bed or a hotel at night.

Originally Posted by itom 987

I never said that transit should be removed but the majority of people in Alberta own a car. I don't know what the ratio would be in Ontario but I am sure it would be similar. The ones that don't are students, seniors or have jobs located by a transit route that is convenient. I took transit from Inglewood to downtown Edmonton 15 years ago. It was convenient for me because I didn't want to pay to park my car downtown.

Once again. I never said nobody would own cars. I said that people will drive a lot less when given alternatives. See every place they've implemented high speed rail. Including your beloved China. People drive less when they have an alternative that is fast, reliable and moderately priced.

Moreover, I am starting to see that your view on public conveyances is entirely shaped by your limited experience set in Alberta. You think everybody will own a car, because everyone around you does. Go to downtown Toronto or Montreal where more and more people don't own vehicles at all and get around just fine using public transit or taxis, Uber or car sharing services when a car is necessary. In fact, you'll now see people buying condos in Toronto and Montreal without parking spots. There's not even a fear of resale issues with lack of parking. So naturally, coming from watching this trend, the rest of us might find your perspective very odd. Why the heck would anybody want to go back to driving? Toronto and Montreal aren't the only cities either. Ottawa is another one where I've had friends go car less. And I'm sure Vancouver is probably heading this way too. Quite simply, cars are expensive and used far too little to justify the expense in most cities. And once people get used to that, the idea of spending $50k on something they might use occasionally for a road trip seems even more inconceivable.

Originally Posted by itom 987

$50,000 for a new car isn't expensive when you factor in inflation 20 years from now. Even if the automated car cost $50,000 in today's dollars it would be affordable to many. For example, if a family today can afford two $23,000 cars. Then the family in the future can do with one $50,000 (todays dollars) car and share it amongst themselves. How would that work? The father goes to work, then tells the car to go by itself back home to pick up the mother to go where ever she needs to go.

You guys must all be loaded in Alberta.

The average price of a car in Canada is around $27k. And a truck is $40k. And outside of the Prairies theres a lot more cars than trucks.

http://www.guideautoweb.com/en/articles/29771/the-average-price-of-a-new-vehicle/

$50 000 is very expensive. The is 25-90% over today's average vehicle price. And even at that price, you don't get automation today. A Tesla Model S today is over $100k. And that still doesn't have the automation to do what you want. Realistically, you can't get automation without full electrification (the control systems and sensor integration is a real pain in the six with gas/diesel). Even the upcoming Model 3 will have an average retail price over $60k in CAD. And to get to the point where you can sleep, the government needs to be reassured that every single vehicle (not just cars) are automated. We're talking about every family spending $50k.

You can bet on that if you like. I see the big auto companies buying massive stakes in car sharing companies and I say they expect less sales not more.

From Harvard Business Review:
https://hbr.org/2015/08/what-driverless-cars-mean-for-todays-automakers

Banks, consultants and investors already don't share your vision of personal vehicle ownership:
http://www.businessinsider.com/driverless-cars-may-lead-to-the-end-of-car-ownership-2015-11

Originally Posted by itom 987

I went to China for 2 months in 2005, back then the only HSR working was going from the Shanghai Airport into Shanghai. I met a local on the plane that offered to drive me to my hotel, free of charge. So I never had the opportunity to check it out. I did see the elevated track alongside the highway into Shanghai though, it looked very expensive.

...
I haven't been to China if 10 years but I wouldn't be surprised if they would prefer HSR to night busses but I won't be surprised either if half of the population can't afford it. The video you showed of a guy demonstrating his HSR business class seat converting into a bed. The bed sizes between HSR and sleeper busses are not that far apart. [/quote]

HSR is incredibly affordable in China. I showed you business class. This video shows you all the classes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvytUaRs2dU

Looks like a VIA to me in Economy. But yes, they do have more luxurious offerings. And they are cheap.

You keep thinking its expensive, because you don't get how asset utilization works. Trains actually get cheaper (on operational costs) the faster they go. Since the same train can fit in more trips, it can carry more passengers. The fixed costs are now spread over a larger number of seat-miles. So seat-mile costs actually go down which means fares come down.

Originally Posted by itom 987

I am willing to drop any condescending 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 that is coming from me, but I expect you to do the same.

Let me remind you that you started with your nonsense about me being an unknowledgeable student. I suggest you learn to be open to the viewpoints and more importantly knowledge and experience of others. Just because you went to China and saw a sleeper bus, doesn't mean that the Chinese love sleeper buses and that everybody wants to save money on a hotel room by traveling at night. You seem to ignore the fact that most business travel is same day travel. You seem to ignore how economics works with faster trains. You seem to ignore the cost of technology, timeframes for deployment, and the necessary societal and policy changes to actually effect universal deployment. That's a lot of assumptions to make on your part. And you want that weighed against the mountain of evidence we have on well high speed rail works in the the right corridors (of which Windsor-Quebec definitely is).

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I went from Rome to Florence this year a distance of 300km at 250km/hr non-stop for just 25 Euros.

Exactly. I took a ride from Cordoba to Seville for less than 10 euros. Madrid to Seville is the same distance as Toronto-Montreal. Less than 25 euros. I don't get where itom 987 gets the idea that high speed trains are expensive.

Now I do expect they'll be more expensive in Canada since they'll be funded by the pension funds who want higher returns. But they'll still be cheaper than Greyhound thanks to the sheer number of seats added. And the time savings, reliability and safety over driving will be so attractive that I expect the government will actually be able to defer the proposed six-laning for most of the 401. Who's going to want to drive when they can get from Ottawa to Toronto 1.5 hrs (or 1 hr faster from Montreal) faster that driving and with no effort.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Why high speed rail switched from Montreal to Kitchener-Waterloo: Cohn
(Toronto Star)

High speed rail has taken a U-turn in Ontario.

For decades, all roads — or at least routes — led to Montreal. Driven by the perennial national unity debate, premiers preened for annual photo-ops while promising to bind Ontario and Quebec not just economically but politically.

Yet high speed rail remained stuck on a slow train that never left the station.

Now, the destination is in another direction — with westward stops in Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo and London.

Why the turnaround? And why did the Quebec quest reach a dead end?

Today the politics are more provincial than national, and the economics are more practical than aspirational.

Premier Kathleen Wynne dreams, no doubt, of harvesting more votes by proclaiming Ontario’s biggest-ever infrastructure project — a sleek high-speed train with all the bells and whistles — as her $20-billion legacy. But southwestern Ontario is hardly fertile territory for her governing Liberals, and she’s unlikely to be in office to drive the last spike eight to 14 years from now.

A better explanation for the new direction is the belated recognition that a fast train to Montreal isn’t as smooth as it sounds. At least not at that price.

If you build it, they may not come. Or pay.

The trip between Canada’s two biggest cities has always been driven by the promise of business travellers and tourists paying top dollar for a short trip. But the problem with occasional travellers is that they come and go — without coming back often enough to build a business around it.

Consider the painful fiasco of the Union Pearson Express to Toronto’s airport.

A train that targeted an exclusive business market didn’t generate much high-end traffic in the end, or the high revenues to pay for it. Only when UP opened up to everyone along the route — transforming it from a business and ruling class train to a people’s class commute — did the seats finally get filled and the cash begin to flow (though still too slowly).

This is not a columnist’s customary second-guessing, merely second thoughts. I’d long supported an airport rail link here, having regularly ridden the Hong Kong Airport Express when I lived there (also a 22-minute ride downtown). Just as I’d always supported the idea of a high-speed link to Montreal — or anywhere.

One trip on the Maglev train from Shanghai’s airport at the warp speed of 432 km/h takes the breath away, even if the terminus in suburban Pudong is in the middle of nowhere. But no amount of love and affection for train technology (vintage or vector) will keep a dreamy journey from crashing down to earth on faulty economics.

Without the ridership and revenue bases, any train is baseless. It’s not clear that North American distances, densities or propensities among riders would have sustained customer demand here until recently. The appeal of this proposed route — if the economics can be made to work — is that it connects 7 million people along a population corridor that accounts for 60 per cent of Ontario’s economy.

Phase One would link downtown Toronto to Pearson Airport and the high-tech hub of Kitchener-Waterloo at speeds of up to 250 km/h, ending in London. The latter destination seems more of a stretch (and happens to be the home of deputy premier Deb Matthews, whose riding is increasingly encircled by New Democrat MPPs), but there may be an argument for a southwestern Ontario nexus that draws in that economically depressed population centre.

Phase Two leads from London to Windsor but may never get off the ground. A report to Wynne by former federal transport minister David Collenette concedes that ridership and revenue remain unproven on that stretch, relying instead on “socio-economic and regional development grounds” for a future extension.

A Windsor terminus sounds more political than economical, destined to be deferred from one election campaign to the next. Just as the perennial route to Quebec kept going in circles.

High-speed rail has been a long journey, more prosaic than romantic. Instead of passengers gliding to Montreal for a getaway, think of commuters hitching a 48-minute from Kitchener-Waterloo to the GTA as part of their daily grind.

Customers in a hurry, heading from home to work and back again. Who keep coming back.

[north 42]

^ London is an economically depressed population centre? Leave it to Torontonians to view everything outside of the GTA as an economically depressed hinterland, lol.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by north 42

^ London is an economically depressed population centre? Leave it to Torontonians to view everything outside of the GTA as an economically depressed hinterland, lol.

Agreed, although the article is accurate wrt London being an "add-on" to the main event, which is a high-speed link for the K-W/Toronto high tech corridor. I doubt that the Windsor - London second phase will ever see the light of day.

[Taeolas]

As I said a long time ago, probably in this very thread; HSR to London or Windsor does make a decent amount of sense.

The route has enough people along it to make it viable theoretically.

It is also entirely in-province, so there are fewer obstacles to getting it done.

HSR, while common in Europe and Asia, is still an unknown thing in North America; this route is short enough to be a good "Proof of Concept" that might finally kick off an HSR boom across the continent (Both in Canada and the US). No one likes to be first, especially with so much money on the line; so being able to point to a 'local' HSR project and show how North American folk are accepting it, will make future projects easier to push.

So all in all, HSR to London/Windsor, I'm perfectly fine with.

The problem is, it feels like we went through all this before at the dawn of the LAST provincial election. So it feels like there hasn't been any progress on this. Were any Ontario government serious about this, there would be shovels hitting the ground by now, after the last announcements. Not more announcements, slightly modified, for more reports to herald the start of the project just before the NEXT election.

The Rick Mercer skit on "Canada being a leader on HSR Reports", is sadly still true to this day.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by north 42

^ London is an economically depressed population centre? Leave it to Torontonians to view everything outside of the GTA as an economically depressed hinterland, lol.

Yep, which is why the typical Torontonian views Maritimers as poorly educated rubes, killing time on the wharves singing sea shanties while all the time collecting pogey and basically living off the teat of Bay Street.

Welcome to the club!!!

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Agreed, although the article is accurate wrt London being an "add-on" to the main event, which is a high-speed link for the K-W/Toronto high tech corridor. I doubt that the Windsor - London second phase will ever see the light of day.

And that's probably fine. At that point, it's arguable that it should be stretched in the other direction.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Agreed, although the article is accurate wrt London being an "add-on" to the main event, which is a high-speed link for the K-W/Toronto high tech corridor. I doubt that the Windsor - London second phase will ever see the light of day.

I don't think it will either. The only way would be to do it all in one phase, which will never happen. I do think that it's doable though, connecting Windsor/Detroit to Toronto with Southwestern Ontario in between. There's more than enough population between these two big metros to justify it.

[lrt's friend]

I think the key to the Windsor extension will be a long-term vision for service to Detroit and eventually Chicago. The hope will also be for renaissance of downtown Detroit, which may now finally be starting.

Whether any of this takes place will depend on Phase 1. Making this a success is critical and it has to be an affordable alternative. It cannot be priced only for the elite. It has to be an affordable alternative that the average person will want to use it.

The mistake with the UPX was that they marketed to a too small demographic. Express trains to airports are always priced higher in other cities, but always at a level that the majority will make this as their first choice. Certainly much cheaper than a taxi. I experienced this in both Copenhagen and Oslo in the last couple of weeks. It was interesting to run into American travellers who were unfamiliar with the convenience of airport trains and had spent a fortune on a taxi and were shocked to find a much better rail alternative.

Part of the challenge here will be to convince the public that rail is a 'real' transportation alternative after decades of the car or airplanes as being the only choices. I believe we are going to soon see a generational change when the young generation do not want to tied down to the cost of a car and having to deal with hellish traffic for hours on end to get to a destination.

The Ontario government is making the right choice. Rail is the future. We are already seeing it in more and more cities. The next step is to re-connect our cities.

The comments about connecting Ottawa and Montreal must also be considered. This will be a bigger challenge because of distance but there is already a much bigger established market, which will grow substantially with the right rail service. Highway 401 has become a miserable transportation route as have our airports especially for short haul flights. Too many delays, too many lines, too much time required to be at an airport in advance of a flight. No real effort to eliminate line-ups at airports, which create a very unpleasant travel experience.

My recent trip really pointed out the potential advantage of rail over planes to even connect from Ottawa to a flight at Pearson. My trip ended up with an unanticipated 24 hour delay in Toronto because of flight cancellations and delays. My comment at the time was that even current VIA service to Toronto could have avoided my missed connections. I had a 7 hour window to connect to an overseas flight and both the airlines and Pearson failed me.

[north 42]

Detroit's downtown renaissance has definitely already started, its like night and day compared to even just 5 years ago, it's absolutely amazing!

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Yep, which is why the typical Torontonian views Maritimers as poorly educated rubes, killing time on the wharves singing sea shanties while all the time collecting pogey and basically living off the teat of Bay Street.

Welcome to the club!!!

I keep hearing that "London is a stretch" or that "HSR shouldn't go all the way to London" in the Toronto media, on Reddit's Toronto forum and even here, but I have yet to hear anyone give a reason. I'm really curious why there is so much opposition in Toronto to HSR going to London.

I agree entirely with having HSR to Montreal as well, but I don't understand why it can't be both.

[FFX-ME]

I have the opposite opinion. K-W is too close. If you can get there is basically the same amount of time using GO why do we need a fancy new high-speed rail. You need to travel longer distances to make it worth the investment.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by north 42

^ London is an economically depressed population centre? Leave it to Torontonians to view everything outside of the GTA as an economically depressed hinterland, lol.

http://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/london-left-behind

London has suffered with job losses from manufacturing. The bigger issue though is not today, but what will support London in the future. The city would definitely have much brighter prospects if they were plugged into Waterloo and to the GTA.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

I have the opposite opinion. K-W is too close. If you can get there is basically the same amount of time using GO why do we need a fancy new high-speed rail. You need to travel longer distances to make it worth the investment.

Think through service. If it's a continuous line with VIA HFR to Ottawa and Montreal, why would you terminate at Union?

[Horus]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Think through service. If it's a continuous line with VIA HFR to Ottawa and Montreal, why would you terminate at Union?

That would be a massive shift in thinking at VIA. There is no service through Union now. As far as VIA is concerned, nobody wants to travel from West of Toronto to points East, or vice versa.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Horus

That would be a massive shift in thinking at VIA. There is no service through Union now. As far as VIA is concerned, nobody wants to travel from West of Toronto to points East, or vice versa.

Through service can't be done today. They don't own the tracks going East or West. So delays would simply cascade further if it was a through service. Splitting the service let's them have a minuscule chance of making on time performance somewhere.

This is why this project is so important:

http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail/governance-and-reports/dedicated-tracks

Give them their own tracks and travel times get cut by 20-40% and on time performance goes up to 95%. That in turn means they can run a through service.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

I keep hearing that "London is a stretch" or that "HSR shouldn't go all the way to London" in the Toronto media, on Reddit's Toronto forum and even here, but I have yet to hear anyone give a reason. I'm really curious why there is so much opposition in Toronto to HSR going to London.

I agree entirely with having HSR to Montreal as well, but I don't understand why it can't be both.

I'm a Torontonian originally. And I think it's ridiculous viewpoint. London needs and could support High Speed Rail. Collenette's own business case showed that they whole route has a net positive benefits case.

And that business case did not take into account what happens if it's a VIA line with through service at Union allowing you to travel from London to Ottawa in less than 4 hrs, for example.

Collenette also assumed 3 train during peak hours and 2 trains per hour off-peak. VIA says they'll do hourly service on their TOM corridor. So if you reduce the number of trains, the business case gets even better.

[lrt's friend]

We have to change our mindset. HSR will start replacing car travel. Once clear time savings are presented, that we can either spend 6 or 7 hours on the 401 or take a train in 4 hours, people will start making other choices.

We also need a frequent rail service to Niagara Falls, one of Ontario's premier tourist attractions.

Travel in Europe really shows how backward North America's transportation network is. I just spent 3 weeks entirely using planes, trains, buses, boats and on foot.

[ue]

I think Toronto-Montreal (or Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal) is the most logical HSR route in the country, but agree with others that Toronto-London is also a very viable route. I assume the reason why this is going ahead first is due to it being an Ontario-led initiative, which Ontario is paying for, and so it makes sense to connect the largest, most economically viable constituents.

The Windsor connection only makes sense in the context of connecting to Detroit. Niagara Falls on its own would make sense, though, but a connection to Buffalo/Rochester would be even better.

So, at full build out, I can see the following working for HSR --

Windsor-Chatham-London-Kitchener-Pearson-Toronto-Kingston-Montreal-Trois-Rivieres-Quebec City

Toronto-Belleville-Kingston-Ottawa-Montreal

Mont-Tremblant-Montreal-Magog-Sherbrooke-Drummondville-Trois-Rivieres (connections to Quebec City)

Drummondville-Montreal

Moncton-Sussex-Saint John-Fredericton-Sussex-Moncton (loop)

Toronto-Pearson-Hamilton-Niagara Falls

Saskatoon-Regina-Moose Jaw

Edmonton-Red Deer-Calgary-Banff

Whistler-Vancouver-Abbotsford

Victoria-Nanaimo-Courtenay/Comox-Campbell River

This would be in a full build-out scenario, exhausting all viable options.